


The Persistence of Memory

by arts_and_letters



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e07 Digestivo, Pre-Episode: s03e08 The Great Red Dragon, Will isn't dark but his thoughts definitely are, cannibal feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 16:04:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5169959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arts_and_letters/pseuds/arts_and_letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He keeps track of the days, the days since he last laid eyes on Hannibal Lecter, and on the days when his mind is not his own, when he feels his entire body crying out for the man who made him, the man who ruined him, when he can’t bear to be around his wife and child, on those days, the worst days, he tells himself—</p><p>  <em>Tomorrow. You can always go see him tomorrow.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Persistence of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work is taken from [ this Dali painting](http://uploads5.wikiart.org/images/salvador-dali/the-persistence-of-memory-1931.jpg). This fic spans the three year gap between the first and second parts of season 3. Fair warning, it's kind of angsty.

You can heal a bone that breaks. You can cure an infection. You can cut out a cancer that’s inside of you.

The invisible ailments are much harder to cure.

How can you excise a memory? How can you eradicate emotions? How can you irrevocably sever the ties that bind you to another person?

You can’t, and Will is reminded of that fact every single day.

That doesn’t stop him from trying, doesn’t stop him from fighting this unwinnable war, even though he knows it’s an impossible battle, utterly futile. When it comes to the two of them—Will, Hannibal—there is no closure, no resolution, no peace to be found. There’s only mutually assured destruction.  
  
  
  
  
You can kill a person, you can extinguish a life, but you can’t kill the thoughts, you can’t banish the feelings, you can’t erase the memories.

You can’t fight something that’s invisible, unknowable, impossible to pin down. You can try to ignore it, try to tame it. You can try to pave over the hole inside of your heart. But you can’t cure the hurts, the pain, the need, the want.

But that doesn’t stop him from trying day after day after day.

It doesn't stop him from waking up every single morning and telling Molly that he loves her. It doesn’t stop him from going on walks with Wally and the dogs and teaching Wally how to fish. It doesn’t stop him from putting on the mask, from acting as if he’s not that broken, from pretending like there isn’t a dark cloud that surrounds him. 

Some days, he doesn’t have to pretend. Some days, he feels like the darkness has receded. He wakes up and he’s content with the life he’s built. He wakes up and tells Molly that he loves her, and he doesn’t feel like the words sound hollow as they leave his mouth.

But most days, most days are like this one, filled with small land mines, invisible until he’s stepped on them.

Some days the land mines are different than others, and on the good days there are no land mines at all.

There are days when he can feed meat to his dogs without thinking about Mason Verger feeding them his face.

There are times when he can put on aftershave without a second thought, without imagining what Hannibal would say about it, without imagining what aftershave Hannibal would have had him wear.

There are days when he can take off his shirt and look at the scar on his abdomen without feeling the phantom pain of the knife in his gut, without remembering the sensation of drowning in blood. 

Then there are the days when he feels like his skin has been stripped off, like he’s one giant exposed nerve, and every single thing he touches burns him to the core.

Those days are hard, so hard, so painful, but they’re not as bad as the days when he feels nothing—nothing at all—except for an all encompassing emptiness.

Those days—the nothing days—are the days when he comes closest to falling, because if none of this matters, if none of this is real, then why shouldn’t he bring the world crashing down around him? Why shouldn’t he give in to the darkness living inside of him?

But he doesn’t give in, not even on those days, the worst days.  
  
Instead, he locks himself in a room and drinks whiskey straight out of the bottle.

(He keeps a bottle stashed away just for days like this one.)

As he pours the first shot of whiskey down his throat, he tries not to think about anything, especially not about the man inside his head, the one who burrowed into his soul, the one who has a stranglehold on his heart.

Inevitably, despite his best intentions, he can't silence that voice inside his head. Hannibal always finds a way to be heard.

And so he tosses back another shot—and another and another— and then he closes his eyes and tries to wade into the quiet of the stream.

It doesn’t work, of course. It never works, not anymore.

The stream is no longer a sanctuary, because on these days, the worst days, when he wades into the stream, the water turns red with blood, and he gets swept up in the current, and inevitably the current pulls him under.

He feels the weight of the water, crashing around him, and he can’t breathe, he’s gasping for breath until— 

He opens his eyes, sweaty, shaking, white knuckles holding the bottle of whiskey like a life line. 

There's nowhere that's safe, not in his head, not in his home, not in his heart. All that's left for him to do is to drink, to hope that eventually it will be enough to quiet that voice in the darkest corners of his mind.

And as he swallows one shot of whiskey after another, he can’t shake the feeling that hundreds of miles away, Hannibal is sitting in a cell thinking about him, that their thoughts are one, that they’re still tied together by this invisible bond. 

In these moments, alone, in a room, nowhere to escape, the only thing he can feel is the emptiness inside of him, a black hole that threatens to swallow him up.

He’s only broken out of this desperate, drunk prison, by the whine and scratching on the other side of the door, restrained but persistent.

When he opens the door, Winston runs in first, followed by the rest of the pack, and when he eases himself down onto the floor, bottle still in his hand, the dogs surround him, curling up by his feet, rolling over for a belly rub.

But Winston, Winston lies down, with his head on Will’s right leg, and he watches Will, never breaking eye contact, as if he knows, as if he understands—on some level—that Will is fighting a battle, a battle to stay tethered to this world, a battle with an invisible enemy, a battle with himself. 

As Will returns that gaze, he can’t help but remember driving home that first night, the night this all started, and finding Winston on that lonely road. He took him in, gave him a home, and Winston has repaid him that kindness with so much love, so much loyalty, as only a dog can.

He will never forget Winston following him as he sleep walked his way far from home or how Winston could not be contained in his absence, how he returned home over and over again. He'll never forget the way Winston’s eyes followed him the entire time he was preparing to set sail, as if he knew.

What would have happened, if he had never gotten on that boat? What would have happened if he never made that call? What would have happened if they had all left together?

He closes his eyes as a sharp pain shoots through his core. He feels his chest constrict, he feels the room shrink, he can't breathe, his heart is pounding, he's suffocating—

And then suddenly he's drawn back to the present as Winston’s nose nudges his hand until he opens his eyes again and suddenly he can breath once more.

Now Winston is looking at Will in the same way that Molly looks at him, in those moments when he can’t hide the swirling darkness inside of him. 

He knows that look, knows it well, knows it intimately. It’s the look that says, _I wish I could take away your pain_. It’s a look of love, a look of helplessness, and Will wants to say, _I wish you could take away my pain, too_.

He never gives voice to that thought, squashes it as soon as it comes to mind, because he knows that no one can take away the pain, no one can cut out the disease that tries to destroy him from the inside out.

But even if they can’t take away his pain, at least they can balance out his darkness with the lightness of their presence, with the warmth of their love. After all, if you’re outside on a cold winter night, a campfire can’t make the cold disappear, but it can make it a little more bearable. 

Whenever Molly gives him that look, he goes to her, and he wraps his arms around her, and he says—

_I love you_

And she looks at him with a smile and says—

_I know_

And he smiles back, and then she kisses him, and he clings to the solidness of her presence.

But today, in this moment, in this room, Molly isn’t here, but that doesn't mean he's alone. He has Winston, his dogs, his pack, his family of strays.

Without Molly, without Walter, without his dogs, he probably would have given into his darkest urges months ago. But he didn't, because he has them, and right now, in this moment, he pushes the bottle of whiskey aside, out of reach, and then he buries his face in Winston’s fur and allows the tears to fall.

He’s become so good at quiet grief. He has to be in those moments when he wakes up—shaking, nauseous, sweaty—in the middle of the night, Molly by his side. Every time that happens—and it happens many, many times—he runs to the bathroom, closes the door, sits down on cold tile, and lets the grief take hold.

But he has to be quiet. He can’t—won’t—let Molly see him like that. Because it will hurt her, scare her, and she’ll ask why, she’ll want to know, even if she doesn’t ask, the question will be there like a wall between them, and he can’t give her the answer, can’t let he see that part of him. 

So he buries the grief deep inside of himself whenever they’re together, and when it comes out, he locks himself away and muffles the sounds of his suffering.

But in this moment, in this empty house, with Winston by his side, he doesn’t have to be quiet, doesn’t have to be silent, and so he lets the tears fall, gives voice to the pain, lets his soul scream.

And eventually, when he’s hoarse from the effort, from the desperate ache, the weight of his sadness, he pulls himself together, gives Winston a pat on the head, hides the bottle of whiskey, pushes himself up from the floor, and revels in this brief moment when the icy numbness in his chest begins to thaw, just the tiniest bit, and by the time Molly and Walter come home, the smell of whiskey is no longer on his breath, the tears are dry, and he’s sitting in the living room, in front of the fire, the dogs curled up at his feet.  
  
  
  
  
The content of their many conversations always echoes in his head. So many words spoken, even more unsaid.

But the conversation that haunts him most, the one his mind returns to over and over again, is the one they had in Florence as they sat side by side across from the Boticelli. These words, his own words, are like a constant refrain in his head— 

 _I’m curious if either of us can survive our separation_.

That question is always hanging over him, casting a shadow over his every waking moment.

He’s still waiting for an answer.

Or rather, still waiting for the final answer, because each day, it brings an answer, but it’s ever changing, always in flux.

Some days, when the sun is out and the three of them go out for a walk in the woods, or other days, when they're sitting together in the living room, after dinner, and Wally shows them the new trick he just taught one of the dogs, in those moments, he convinces himself that they separated and they survived. 

But then some days, most days, he’s certain that they never separated, that they never can.

On other days, darker days, he’s not sure if he survived at all.

Then there are those days, the worst days, the darkest days, when he’s sure that he’s survived, and he wishes that he hadn’t.  
  
  
  
  
There’s an emptiness inside of him. Many different emptinesses. Different spots, different depths—all the pieces that Hannibal took, that Will gave up, that can never get back.

There’s a hole inside of him. A Hannibal-shaped hole.

He can’t fill the hole, can’t replace the missing pieces, but he can do his best to pave over the chasm, to glue together what remains of his broken self, to paint over the sadness.

But, no matter how hard he tries, he can never hide completely, and Molly—loving, steadfast—always seems to sense when the darkness comes over him.

At first, she would ask him about it, try to draw him out. She always did it gently, with the utmost care. She never tried to slice him open, forceful, violating, the way that Hannibal did.

Molly is strong willed and confident, but she’s also kind to the core, without any hint of cruelty.

It’s one of the many reasons why he loves her. It’s one of the many reasons why he wants to give her everything that she wants, all of the happiness that she deserves.

And she can be persuasive when she wants to be. He’s seen her sway teachers, shop keepers, men twice her size. Of course, with Will, she doesn’t even have to try, because Will never wants to deny her.

Except for this. The only thing he can’t give her, the only thing he can’t share, are the darkest parts of himself.

A part of him wants to, a part of him desperately wants to answer when she asks him what’s wrong. He wants to share his burden, wants her to know, to understand. He wants someone to bear witness to the pain that’s inside of him.

But he can’t, and he won't.

He would give Molly everything, anything, except the darkest parts of himself.  
  
  
  
  
There are so many parts of himself that Will can’t share with Molly, that he can’t share with anyone.

Or at least not with anyone except the man who lives in a glass cage, the man who implanted himself in a dark corner of Will’s mind, the afterimage, the projection, the phantom pain personified.

And as hard as he tries, he can never free himself from Hannibal's grip.

You can’t kill a ghost. All you can do is hope to outlive it. All you can do is remind yourself that eventually, one day, this too will end. One way or another.

There are those rare days when he's filled with hope, when he convinces himself that the end is in sight, that freedom is on the horizon.  
  
Other days, few and far between, he deludes himself into thinking that the end has already come.

Most days, he knows that this will only end when he does.

Then there are those days, the worst days, where he sits alone in a dark room and plans out the ways to end it all right now.  
  
Even on those days, the darkest days, he doesn’t end it. He keeps on going, keeps on living, as he watches each day pass him by, each day opening up more distance between them.

But that distance is just an illusion, so fragile that it shatters at the slightest touch.  
  
  
  
  
The calendar is like a map of their damages.

It’s not that he keeps the dates in his head. If you asked him in this moment, what was the date when they first met, what was the date when he held a gun to Hannibal’s head, the first time, the second time, what was the date when they sat together in the Uffizi gallery, he wouldn’t be able to say.

He can’t remember the dates, not consciously, but his body remembers them. His brain, some deep, subconscious part, unknowable unless it wants to make itself known, it remembers.

He knows that it’s the first anniversary of their Italy reunion when he looks in the mirror and sees Hannibal’s face reflected back next to his own, mirror images in the mirror, and he can hear the words echo inside his head—

 _If I saw you every day for forever, Will, I would always remember this one_.

And each time, staring at his reflection, staring at the ghost, he says—

_If I never see you again in this lifetime, I will see you every day in the prison that you made for me._

Then there’s the day when he wakes up drenched in sweat, clutching his abdomen, feeling like he’s being gutted all over again.

On that day, he rolls out of bed, before Molly wakes up, gets into the shower without taking off his clothes, tries to wash away the pain, but then the water turns to blood, and all he can hear are the sounds of Abigail taking her last, gasping breaths.

The only date he does remember, consciously, explicitly, is the date of their last parting. The date when Hannibal surrendered himself, forever ensuring that Will would be haunted by his presence.

And as that date draws near, he always tells Molly that he has to go out of town for a few days, to see an old friend. She never asks who, she never asks where, she never asks why. All she says is—

_When will you be coming back?_

A part of him wants to tell her he won’t, part of him wants to beg her to come with him, part of him wants her to stop him, to tell him not to go.

But instead he just says—

_Saturday._

He always leaves at sunset, the day before that date. He gets into his car, one change of clothes in an overnight bag, some cash, no credit cards, his cell phone in the glove compartment, where it will stay the whole time, turned off, never touched. 

He drives without stopping until he reaches Wolf Trap, Virginia, until he reaches his home, his other home, the home where this all started, where it should have ended, if it could end, if there was an end, if there was any ending beyond this one.

But at least he has more than the specters of the dead and the ghosts of the living to keep him company.  
  
At least he has Winston.  
  
It wasn’t his idea. It was Molly’s—and Winston’s.

The first time, as he was preparing for the pilgrimage, on the eve of the one year anniversary of their parting, he had the duffel bag in one hand, car keys in the other, he was already halfway out the door, when Molly came out from the bedroom and said—

 _You should take Winston with you._  
  
He opened his mouth, ready to object, but before he could say a word, Molly said—

_He misses you too much when you’re gone._

Then he looked outside and saw Winston, sitting expectantly by the truck, and he didn’t have the heart to say no, to either of them.

And when he pulls up to the house, to his home, his old home, he’s so grateful to Molly, to Winston, for not allowing him to go out their on his own.  
  
  
  


The first thing he does when he gets to Wolf Trap is go inside and turn on all the lights. He runs his hands along all the familiar surfaces, he allows the echoes of their final conversation to ring in his mind—

_I miss my dogs. I won’t miss you._

And then those fatal words, when Hannibal sentenced Will to this hellish fate—

 _I want you to always know where I am._  
  
Almost immediately, the air inside that house feels stale, he feels trapped, and so he goes outside and wanders through the woods, for hours, until his feet and his hands and his face turn numb, until Winston whines and nudges them both back towards home.

As they turn towards the house, he sees the lights in the windows, and he remembers that conversation, with Hannibal, when he uttered those words—

_That’s really the only time I feel safe._

He doesn’t feel safe any more. Safety is not a concept he understands, not in this new universe, where the teacup has been broken into so many tiny pieces that they turned into ash and blew away with the wind.

  
  
  
During this pilgrimage, he doesn’t sleep. He’s too afraid to sleep. 

Instead, he remembers.

He goes back over every moment, every hour, every day of their tortured, twisted courtship. He remembers every moment of lightness, every hour of darkness, all the betrayals, all the pain.

But he also remembers the way that he felt in Hannibal’s presence, the revelation of finally being known, of being understood. He remembers how he was drawn to Hannibal, like a moth to a flame, like a lamb going to slaughter—blindly, without question, happy in his ignorance. He remembers the way he felt safe, even after, even once the mask was removed—he still felt safe, because Hannibal was so solid, so present, so controlled, that Will could cling to him like an anchor.  
  
He’s lost his anchor. Now all he has is this invisible albatross around his neck and an all-consuming, ever-present emptiness.  
  
  
  


After many hours, hours spent going over every moment, prodding the wound, feeling it’s depth, exploring its width, he finally allows himself to go forward, to follow the many forking paths, to imagine all the different universes and where each might lead.

Like the one in which he purges himself of all thoughts of Hannibal and returns to his wife and child, unburdened, untainted, finally free.

Or the universe in which he gets into his car and just starts driving and never stops, never looks back, never goes home—any of his homes—again.

And then there’s the universe where he gets into the car and drives along those familiar roads, to Baltimore, to that foreboding building that holds the man who still has a stranglehold on his heart.

But what then? What would he say? What would he do?

There are so many things—too many, not enough—and he's dizzy with the possibilities.

Maybe he would say—

_I hate you_

_For killing Abigail_

_For trying to kill me_

_For killing her instead of me_

_For making me believe that you cared_

_For sawing into my skull_

_literally, figuratively_

_For turning yourself in so that I would always be haunted by your presence_

Or maybe he would finally say—

_I'm sorry_

_For betraying you_

_For trying to kill you_

_over and over and over again_

_For not confessing when you gave me the chance_

_For not running away when you gave me the chance_

_For pretending not to care_

But maybe, just maybe, the only thing left to say is—

_Thank you_

_For showing me the beauty of this world_

_For caring about me more than I thought you ever could_

_For saving me_

_For being my anchor_

_For being my friend_

_the first one, the only one_

There are so many things that he could say, would say, and suddenly, without thought, as if possessed—because he is, he is possessed, his mind and his soul and his heart are not his own—he stands up, and his coat and his keys are in his hand, he’s twisting the door knob, before he’s even conscious of the destination—Baltimore—but then he hears that familiar, urgent bark, and he stops, steps away from the door, drops the keys and his coat onto the floor, and returns to his spot on the couch.

Winston is the closest thing he has to an anchor in this moment, in this place, because he can’t leave Winston alone, can’t take Winston with him, not if he’s going anywhere but back to Molly. He looks at Winston and knows, that on some level, Winston understands the darkness that threatens to strangle him. He knows that as long as Winston is there, he won’t be swallowed up by it completely.

Eventually, when the sun has set, when that day is over, he steps onto the porch, looks out at the dark, snowy fields, and he closes his eyes, and remembers that terrible, thrilling, tormenting moment, when Hannibal stepped out of the shadows, and kneeled down on the ground, in front of Jack, and forever sealed Will’s fate.

And then it’s over. Will opens his eyes and sees that Winston is already standing by the truck, and he knows that it’s time, time to go home, time to go back to fighting to keep the demons at bay.  
  
  
  
  
He always keeps track of the days, the days since he last laid eyes on Hannibal Lecter.

Or at least the version of Hannibal Lecter that is living, breathing, solid, real. Not the Hannibal Lecter that lives in his head, in his nightmares. Not the Hannibal Lecter that he catches a glimpse of on the news, in the newspaper.

He keeps track of the days, and when it starts to feel like too much to bear, he tells himself—

_If I’ve made it this long, I can make it a little bit longer._

He keeps track of the days, and on the days when he wonders how much longer he can manage, he whispers to himself—

_One day at a time._

He keeps track of the days, the days since he last laid eyes on Hannibal Lecter, and on the days when his mind is not his own, when he feels his entire body crying out for the man who made him, the man who ruined him, when he can’t bear to be around his wife and child, on those days, the worst days, he tells himself—

_Tomorrow. You can always go see him tomorrow._

But he doesn’t. He stays strong. He white knuckles his way through the rough patches.

He can’t control the feelings. He can’t numb the pain. He can’t extinguish the thoughts. He can’t kill the memories. He can’t sleep through the nightmares. 

But he can push through the pain. He can absorb it, become one with it, outlive it.

He can do that—he does do that—each day, every day, even on the days when he doesn’t want to.

Even on the worst days, even when he feels like he’s still lying on the floor in Hannibal’s kitchen, gutted, drowning in blood, even on those days, Molly and Walter are there to keep him from going under completely.

He’s so grateful to them for letting him into their lives, even when he was his most broken, even though he’ll never fully be whole. And he does his best to repay them by allowing himself to love them back, by opening himself up to the happiness he feels when he and Wally take the dogs for a walk, when they all sit down at the dinner table together, when Wally talks about his day at school, when Molly wraps her arms around him and pulls him out of the abyss.

And so he keeps fighting, never gives up, even on the day when he desperately wants to.

But he stays strong because he’s seen what happens when he opens Pandora’s box, and he doesn’t want to go back there again.

He stays strong because if he loses any more pieces of himself, if he gets any more stains on his soul, he’ll never be able to come back to them, and he doesn’t want to lose the life he’s built here.

He stays strong because he loves Molly and Walter. He loves them fiercely and without reservation. He loves them as deeply as his broken heart will allow.

But then, there's the day, three years and twenty two days after their last parting, when Jack Crawford shows up at his door, and Will can’t stay strong anymore.  
  
  
  
  
It’s like an addiction. All or nothing. As long as he stays clean, as long as he doesn’t allow himself to fall back into Hannibal’s orbit, he can enjoy the good days and grit his teeth through the bad.

But when he’s pulled in again, when he once more walks through those familiar, haunted halls, when he closes his eyes and lets the pendulum swing, when he walks through those doors, and utters the words— 

_Hello, Dr. Lecter_

It’s as if no time has passed at all.

When he sees Hannibal for the first time in one thousand one hundred and twenty one days—solid, present, vivid and alive—he feels the floor open up underneath his feet, and suddenly he’s drowning in Hannibal all over again, and there’s no one there to keep him from going under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally intended to be a two chapter fic. The next chapter is definitely going to be Hannibal's POV, covering this same time period, but I'm toying with the idea of adding an Alana POV, and after that, who knows, maybe we need a Bedelia POV or a Chilton POV. Or heck, a Winston POV. (Okay, I'm joking about that last one...mostly.) The Hannibal chapter is already under way, although I'm not sure when I'll get it posted. I really didn't mean to get started on another WIP when I already have several other Hannigram stories in progress. Oh well.
> 
> One other note: I'm not sure if the definition of phantom pain is common knowledge, but it's a term for the sensations that the brain perceives as coming from a part of the body that isn't there physically. This often happens after someone has a limb amputated. I'm obviously using it in a more metaphorical sense in this chapter, but I think it's pretty fitting. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks to everyone who read this story, and I hope you enjoyed it despite all the angst and the lack of explicit Hannigram. If you have a moment to leave a comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this first chapter :)


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